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Why Study Shakespeare?

 





A few weeks ago, the English II students were practicing giving speeches. One student extended a particular invitation to me to hear her speech on why we shouldn't devote so much time to studying Shakespeare in high school. She made some good points:

  • More time should be made to explore other authors and diverse views. Specifically mentioned were:
  • The style in which he writes has been replicated by many authors since, so it is no longer unique.
  • The plots are derivative and quite boring in some ways.
  • Shakespeare's themes are rightly called timeless. Authors before and since have explored these themes as well (arguably better at times)

As I said, all good points and I don't disagree with the arguments. However, I offer the following reasons for continued study of works by William Shakespeare.

Cultural Literacy
Yes, we could probably achieve many of the same educational goals by analyzing other works of literature. But we'd miss out on understanding hundreds of years of references and allusions that have followed.

 If we cease our study of these "outdated" works, would students still be able to identify the source and meaning of:
  •  "To be, or not to be" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1)
  • "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! (Richard III, Act V, Scene 4)
  • "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" (Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2)
  • "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them" (Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 5)
Or these movies (not counting direct stage to film adaptations)?
  • The Lion King (Hamlet)
  • West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet)
  • 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew)
Or book titles?
  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (The Tempest)
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury(Macbeth)
  • The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck (Richard III)
It is possible to enjoy all of these without understanding the source material. However, to truly understand authors' intent, you have to know where the authors were drawing inspiration from (not to mention all the references in Star Trek).

Vocabulary building
Shakespeare had a massive vocabulary. According to The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare, there are 884,647 total words used in all of his writings. Once all of the repeats and variants are weeded out, there's a total of 20,000 different words used in total (according to some estimates). That's quite a lot of variation. If you are trying to build your vocabulary, you could do worse. 

In addition, he introduced a number of new words to the English language (estimates range from 400 to 1,700. The lower estimate is probably more correct; some of them already existed, but hadn't been written down).

Cultural Significance
English class (in high school anyway) is mostly past the point of spelling tests and grammar rules. It is the study of what makes us human. The following is a list of humans who were were inspired by their studies of Shakespeare (not all of these are humans to idolize):
  • US Presidents (Including Adams, Jefferson, and Lincoln)
  • Nelson Mandela
  • Sigmund Freud
  • Karl Marx
  • Adolph Hitler
  • Winston Churchill
  • Akira Kurosawa
  • Margaret Thatcher
In summary, I concur that we should study things beyond Shakespeare. I feel that we do a fairly good job at that. Here's what the sophomore Honors English II students are reading this year:
  • The House on Mango Street
  • Julius Caesar
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Frankenstein
  • All Quiet on the Western Front
  • Assorted poetry, short stories, articles, and speeches
That is a decently diverse list. With all the influence that Shakespeare's works continue to have on our society, I think that one play a year is a fair inclusion.

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